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Atlas / NTSB / CEN12CA564

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN12CA564

2012-08-22 Boulder, Colorado, United States Airport · KBDU Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s decision to continue the unstable approach, which resulted in a loss of control during landing and a runway excursion.

Factual narrative

The pilot was returning to the airport to land on runway 8. He stated that he overshot the final approach and had to maneuver the airplane back to the final approach course. The airplane was high on the approach so he extended 30 degrees of flaps and descended at an airspeed between 80 and 85 knots. The pilot stated that he felt that the approach was not stabilized; however, he continued the approach and landed. During the landing roll the pilot felt that he was being pushed by a strong tailwind and was unable to stop the airplane before the end of the runway. The airplane departed the runway environment to the right, went down a 65 foot embankment, and came to rest inverted, resulting in substantial damage to the airframe and both wings. The pilot stated that there were no mechanical anomalies with the airplane prior to the accident. Wind at the time of the accident was recorded as 340 degrees at 4 knots. The pilot stated that he overshot the final approach to the runway and had to maneuver the airplane back to the final approach course. Because the airplane was high on the approach, he extended 30 degrees of flaps and descended at an airspeed of between 80 and 85 knots. The pilot stated that he thought that the approach was not stabilized; however, he continued the approach and landed. The pilot further stated that, during the landing roll, he thought that the airplane was being pushed by a strong tailwind and that he was unable to stop the airplane before the end of the runway. The airplane departed the runway, went down an embankment, and came to rest inverted, resulting in substantial damage to the airframe and both wings. The pilot stated that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • C Personnel issues-Action/decision-Info processing/decision-Decision making/judgment-Pilot - C
  • C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot - C
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Tailwind-Effect on operation

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2012_CEN12CA564.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (loss of control, runway excursion). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗